Plouffe: Obama Has Commanding Position in Key States

White House senior adviser David Plouffe said Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney is “playing defense” less than 48 hours prior to the election.

“It’s going to be a close race,” Plouffe said Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “We’ve believed that the entire campaign, and that’s the campaign we built, was one to win a close race. We think Gov. Romney’s playing defense.”

Plouffe pointed to two key states — Florida and Virginia — and said President Barack Obama has an edge in both of them.

“He’s [Romney] spending, you know, his last day in Florida, and Virginia on Monday, states they were telling you in the media a few weeks ago they thought were done deals,” Plouffe said. “They’re far from done deals. I’d rather be the president today than Gov. Romney in terms of those two states.”

When asked about the government’s investigation of the terrorist attack in Libya — one that killed U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and others — and why security at the consulate was so lax, Plouffe said the Accountability Review Board is handling the matter.

Host David Gregory pressed Plouffe as to whether the administration purposefully is withholding the results of the investigation until after the election.

“Absolutely not,” Plouffe answered. “An investigation like this is very important. We have to get it right so we can learn lessons here.”